Medicaments having optical isomers have been required to be developed as optical pure compounds from the viewpoint of adverse actions or the like. Therefore, the significance of optical resolution and examination of optical purity has been becoming increasingly high.
Especially, optically active amines such as ethanolamine derivatives and catecholamine derivatives have physiological activities for the central nervous system, and are important compounds as numerous medicament intermediates. Therefore, conventionally, numerous studies have been made on the complexation for recognizing enantiomers on the bases of host-guest interactions using crown ethers for optical resolution or analytical purposes of optically active amines [X. X. Zhang, J. S. Bradshaw, R. M. Izatt: Chem. Rev., 97, 3313-3361 (1997): K. Hirose, J. Incl. Phenom. and Macrocyclic Chem., 39, 193-209 (2001). and the like]. However, these complexes have low sensitivities, so that they are hardly used in practical purposes.
Chiral sensors which have been recently developed are those in a chain form containing binaphthol in the molecule (J. Lin, Q.-S. Hu, M.-H. Xu, L. Pu, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 124, 2088-2089 (2002): J. L. Tian, J. C. Yong, S. Z. Ke, D. Wang, W. G. Da, Z. Y. Xiao, Chirality, 13, 595-600 (2001): D. Wang, T.-J. Liu, W.-C. Zhang, W. T. Slaven, C.-J. Li, Chem. Commun., 1998, 1747-1748), and those having a dendrimer form (V. J. Pugh, Q.-S. Hu, L. Pu, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 39, 3638-3641 (2000): L.-Z. Gong, Q.-S. Hu, L. Pu, J. Org. Chem., 66, 2358-2367 (2001)). When these chiral sensors are used, the sensors have high sensitivities utilizing fluorescence emission. However, these chiral sensors do not have selectors (binding sites) which are easily prepared and have high selectivity, so that these sensors are hardly used in practical purposes.
In addition, most of the natural amino acids and the physiologically active substances are chiral compounds. However, under the current situation, the development of sensors capable of rapidly recognizing these chiral compounds in high sensitivity have been earnestly desired. This development is based on the fact that it is very difficult to satisfy high binding property and high selectivity against an enantiomer target of a receptor, in the conventional sensors.